


your warning sign, you will be fine

by dankaroo



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: AgentReign, F/F, SuperCorp, reigncorp friendship, reigncorp romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:55:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14584404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dankaroo/pseuds/dankaroo
Summary: Or, Lena and Sam go way, way back. It’ll take a little more than sleeping together or one of them trying to destroy the planet to ruin their friendship.Reigncorp that evolves into AgentReign & some light Supercorp, but the emphasis is really on Reigncorp friendship. Little to no plot, but there are feels and a hint of ladies boning other ladies, as always :-)





	your warning sign, you will be fine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sten06](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sten06/gifts).



> Please don’t think too hard about the timeline. I wrote this while imbibing two airplane-size bottles of wine. For Kristen (whom you may also know as Sten). Happy birthday, pal!!

“You,” Lena whispers.  
  
Something about her is magnetic; Lena doesn’t know much about her, but she does know a lot about MetroTech — everything there is to know, in fact — and this woman’s in charge of all the financials. The money-making. The big decision-making. Her name’s all over the place, but she’s practically nonexistent beyond the company. At least, Lena couldn’t find a single Instagram post, Facebook page, mugshot, birth certificate, or even high school lacrosse team photo.   
  
Not that she’d spent tons of time looking, or anything.   
  
Okay, fine. She had just wanted to be prepared about what she might look like, to avoid any awkwardness. If she had a unibrow or something. But Samantha Arias most certainly does not have a unibrow. Or any unpleasant facial attributes, like, at all.  
  
Lena approaches her desk and says all she can think to say, which is: “hi.” It’s been two months on the job, and Lex is going to keep lecturing her on professionalism if she doesn’t come up with a better opener than that. He told her she would be recruiting the best of the best in all competing industries, but he didn’t tell her it would involve a lot of buttering up egotistical corporate asshole-lickers to try and convince them to jump ship. But Samantha Arias... she seems different than the rest of them.  
  
Samantha Arias stops typing, looks up from her dual monitor display and says, “hi.”  
  
She makes eye contact, and oh boy, if she couldn’t give Lena a run for her money in the “businesswoman wants you to state your purpose and leave” department. Maybe she’s not so different than all the others, after all.  
  
“I’m Lena,” she says.  
  
“Miss Luthor, I—” Samantha bites her tongue, and redirects, standing up only to be polite or out of fear and probably not out of respect, if Lena has to guess. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Sam Arias.”  
  
“You can call me Lena.” Lena looks out the window behind Ms. Arias’s desk, comments on the view, wrings her hands, bites her lip. _Sam_. She’s not nervous. There’s a school picture on Sam’s desk of a little girl with bushy, brown hair and two missing front teeth. Suddenly, Lena feels a little more focused, more centered. If this woman has a picture of her kid on her desk, then she definitely can’t be some soul-sucking harpy. Probably. Lena fancies herself good at reading people, and yeah, Sam is definitely different. For God’s sake. This whole encounter would be way easier with someone who wasn’t so tall and so... so _handsome_. “I’d like it if this merger didn’t foster any animosity between us,” Lena starts, and stumbling over her words, corrects to “between our companies, I mean.”  
  
Sam keeps a mostly stoic face, her incredulity only given away by her eyebrows raising and lowering within a split second. Damn, she has a good poker face. Lena wouldn’t have even noticed had Sam been another client, but Lena has been maintaining eye contact since the moment Sam had looked up from her monitors. You know, for the intimidation factor. Right.  
  
“You mean acquisition,” she challenges, and adds, “there won’t be any animosity so long as LuthorCorp holds up their end of the bargain,” Sam says. Lena purses her lips and quirks an eyebrow. So Sam likes to play hardball, who would’ve thought.  
  
“I’m looking forward to working with you, Ms. Arias.” They shake hands, and Lena can still feel the tingling in her fingertips even after they’ve stopped touching. “And if you need anything at all, feel free to reach out to me.” Lena produces a business card from her briefcase and before she even realizes what’s happening, she’s leaning over Sam’s desk and scribbling her personal cell phone number on the back of the cardstock with a pen stolen from atop the notepad on Sam’s desk. Lena offers the card, and Sam’s index finger brushes Lena’s as she accepts it, and Lena could swear the energy between them is so palpable that she could reach out and touch it, if she wanted — which, she doesn’t, okay. She doesn’t even _know_ Sam.  
  
“Thanks,” Sam says, and Lena turns on heel, and somehow walks steadily towards the exit. “Hey, Lena?”  
  
Lena stops and turns in the doorway of the new Director of Finance of the Technology Division of LuthorCorp’s soon to be old office, eyes wide.   
  
“It’s Sam,” she says, and it earns a small smile from Lena before she disappears around the corner.  
  
Sam lets out the breath she was holding after Lena is out of view.  
  
—  
  
Sam finds herself knuckle-deep in the woman she had inititally swore to be her enemy exactly a year to the day after LuthorCorp acquires MetroTech. Funny how that happens.  
  
Lena holds either side of Sam’s face in her hands, their foreheads touching as Sam hovers above Lena. She feels Lena tighten around her fingers and waits for her to ride out the wave before placing a few kisses on Lena’s top lip, bottom lip, chin, the corner of her mouth. Sam rolls to the side and the two lie in silence for a few moments, breathing in the heavy air between them. Sam stands, cracks a window to let the cool night breeze into the humid room, and wraps her robe around herself as she slips into the hallway to check on Ruby in the room down the hall.  
  
When she comes back, Lena’s already asleep face-down on the mattress, one arm tucked up into the pillows under her head, sheet at her hips. Sam traces a bead of sweat down Lena’s spine and then climbs under the top sheet as quietly as she can.  
  
“This can’t happen again,” Lena says the next morning, as Sam is still wiping the sleepiness from her eyes.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You heard what I said,” Lena says.  
  
Sam rolls onto her right side to face Lena. “Why?” Her head is propped on her hand, supported by her elbow, and it somehow makes Lena feel like she’s on the defensive. Since when was Sam the one in control? …Besides last night, of course. “Is it because I’m a woman?”  
  
“No,” Lena rolls her eyes, because _ob_ viously Sam should already know the answer, “because I’m your boss.”  
  
Sam’s eyebrows practically disappear into her hairline, and she blinks a few times. “Okay.”  
  
Lena pulls the sheets around herself closer, and looks at the ceiling above her, out the window over Sam’s shoulder, anywhere but at the woman in bed next to her. “No, I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I— they would all think it would be unethical. With Lex incarcerated and my mother disappearing off the face of the planet, I’m already under so much scrutiny at the company. If anyone catches wind of this they’d try to ruin you, too.”  
  
“Ever the martyr,” Sam smiles, but it doesn’t quite make her eyes squint in the way a real Sam smile does. Sam pats Lena’s thigh over the thin bedsheet. “Ruby’s gonna miss having you around.”  
  
“Who says I’m going to stop coming over?” Lena scoffs.  
  
“But I-”  
  
“We can’t be together in this way, Sam, but you’re my best friend. I need you in my life. I need Ruby in my life. You’re my family.” This time, Sam’s smile does reach her eyes and right into Lena’s heart.  
  
Sam nods. “Yeah, okay.” Lena entire face relaxes, as if she expected Sam to cuss her off and out of her house. “What d’ya say we have one more round as goodbye?” Lena reaches behind her and grabs a pillow, hitting Sam in the shoulder with it. Waking up next to a naked, scandalized Lena Luthor is not what Sam ever would have ever pictured for herself. Sam laughs and gets out of bed. “Can’t blame me for trying. That wasn’t exactly a ‘no,’ by the way.” She puts on the shorts that Lena had discarded the night before and a fresh tank top from her dresser and leaves the room to let Lena get dressed. After breakfast, Lena leaves Sam with a peck on the cheek and a promise that everything will stay the same.  
  
And it does, mostly, save for the fact that Lena got involved with Jack Spheer and then moved away to National City once things at LuthorCorp were deemed unsalvageable. She still sends presents for Ruby (lavish, much-too-expensive things for someone as accident prone as Ruby, in Sam’s opinion), she still answers every call without letting it go to voicemail.  
  
So, when Lena calls Sam and offers her a position as Chief Financial Officer of the newly re-named L-Corp, a position which pays relocation from Metropolis and also a nice signing bonus, Sam can’t refuse. The money’s too good to pass up, and although it hurts too much to admit it to herself, she misses Lena’s presence in her life. Ruby’s called her out on it, though. More than once. Damn those precocious pre-teen years.  
   
So, when Sam comes to National City, she’s excited about the new opportunity and the better school district and the gorgeous house and the generous paycheck, but is less than thrilled to know only one super busy person. Lena does what she can to make time for her, but it’s mostly business-related conversations and transition notes now that Lena’s taking some time to get CatCo’s acquisition off the ground. Why did she even buy a stupid media empire, anyway? Probably to get the attention of some girl, no doubt. Classic Lena.  
  
She jumps at the chance to take Ruby to see one of Lena’s speeches. Ruby remembers Lena, of course, but it’s been a few years since they’ve seen each other in person. FaceTime hardly counts. So, a public reintroduction might make things go more… smoothly, Sam decides. It’s not that she’s nervous to see Lena, too. Honest.  
  
She runs into some redhead who she thinks might be trying to flirt with her, a little bit. Maybe not. Who knows, with these West Coast types. But everything goes downhill when a metal something or other falls on her daughter, and holy shit, she thought those mom-adrenaline superpowers were a fucking myth. Turns out, when your kid’s in trouble, you really can do anything.  
  
She finds out later that maybe it wasn’t mom-adrenaline superpowers, but actual superpowers. She drives hours east, into the desert, in the middle of nowhere. Then there’s some giant rock-cave-thing, a Fortress of Sanctuary, and some creepy stuff inside it… When she’s told of how she came to be on earth and how she’s not human, the only thought echoing in her head is, “I’m a hero?”  
  
—  
  
“I’m his boss,” Lena says. It’s Christmas and the whole gang is at Kara’s apartment to celebrate.  
  
“Like that’s ever stopped anyone before,” Sam quirks an eyebrow. “That excuse is old and tired. What’s the real reason you don’t want to climb that man like a tree?” James is sweet and very, very much into Lena. And from the looks of it, could probably throw her over his shoulder and take her to a very enjoyable night in bed. Which, in Sam’s opinion, is exactly what Lena needs. She’s been so on edge lately.  
  
“Oh, don’t give me the mom look!” Lena teases as Sam feigns offense. “I, y’know, Kara and James used to date, and she might feel weird about it, and she’s my best friend here, and,” Lena pauses, “I don’t want to lose her over something silly.” Lena’s eyes are glassy and unfocused when she stares past Sam to where Kara is standing by the window, under the string of fairy lights. Kara’s head is thrown back to let peals of laughter escape and she’s jumbling her words as she’s trying to tell Winn some story that’s obviously the funniest thing she’s ever heard.  
  
Sam follows her gaze, and then turns back to study Lena as Lena watches Kara.  
  
“Lena,” Sam starts.  
  
“Hmm?” Lena is probably listening to Sam, but she still hasn’t stopped looking at Kara.  
  
“Lena.” Lena bites her lower lip and blinks couple times to refocus. “You’re drunk.” Lena inhales through her nose and then nods slowly in affirmation. “And you love Kara.” Lena closes her eyes and lets out a sigh. She nods again. Sam pulls Lena into a hug and strokes her hair as Lena’s eyes well up almost imperceptibly. “It’ll be okay,” Sam says. “She’s stupid if she doesn’t love you too.”  
  
Kara chooses that moment to pop up between them with a bottle of wine in hand. “Who’re we talking about?”  
  
There’s no way Kara could’ve heard their conversation from all the way across the room, but Sam’s suspicious anyway. “James,” Sam says, without missing a beat. “I think he likes Lena.”  
  
Lena may be too drunk to notice the strain in Kara’s smile, but Sam sure does. Kara pours them each another glass and makes some flimsy excuse about cleaning her glasses in the bathroom before she scurries into her room and shuts the door. She’s only gone for a moment, but when she reemerges, Sam notices there’s still a smudge on the right lens, but there’s a single feather in her hair. It’s almost as if she’s been punching a down pillow really, really hard. If she didn’t know Kara better, she might think she was jealous of James liking Lena. But she knows her just well enough to know that Lena’s been the only thing Kara looks at, even when the three of them are hanging out together.  
  
Sam cuts off Lena after one more glass of red, but Lena’s much too tired and drunk to make it home alone. Sam offers up her guest room one last time, standing in the doorway to Kara’s apartment. Kara just smiles and says, “She’s already here. I’ll take good care of her, I promise.” Sam can see the genuine concern for Lena’s well-being in Kara’s eyes. She hopes they get their act together soon.  
  
Sam is reluctant to agree on Lena’s behalf, but it’s late and Ruby can barely keep her eyes open, so she drives home. She occasionally glances in the rearview mirror at Ruby, who has passed in the backseat out of exhaustion from the excitement of the party. She knows she only has a few more years of being able to do this, of shamelessly basking in the sweetness of being Ruby’s mom, before Ruby goes to high school, and starts acting like a teenager, and then goes off to college, and then moves out for good. Her sweet, wonderful daughter. Alex has been so good with her, especially tonight. Sitting on the couch the whole night, talking about Supergirl and entertaining her impossible questions. She’s a natural. Ruby loves her just as much as she does, it seems, she opened up so quickly with Alex—  
  
Wait, loves? No. That’s not a thing. It can’t be a thing. It’s great that Alex is so great with kids, but Sam has to stop jumping to _MARRY THEM_ as the immediate reaction to anyone who shows any sort of affection towards her family. It’s not fair to her, and it’s not fair to Ruby when it ultimately doesn’t work out.  
  
Whatever. Sam can’t wait to give Lena shit about crashing at Kara’s because she got too drunk. She feels kind of bad because she knows how embarrassed Lena will be when she wakes up. Kara is Lena’s _best_ friend, but Sam is Lena’s _oldest_ friend. There’s no replacing her, and it is her duty as the oldest friend to give a little bit of tough love sometimes.  
  
Hey, maybe it’ll finally light the fire under one of them to make a move.  
  
—  
  
As it turns out, the redhead she met her first week in National City ends up being one of the few people she trusts with her life, and that’s how she finds herself in the basement of an L-Corp lab with Alex Danvers, wearing nothing but a hospital gown.  
  
There are needles and MRIs and reflex tests, but about an hour after they’ve started, Alex holds up a cellophane-wrapped treat.  
  
“I get a lollipop?” Sam takes it from her hand, and doesn’t understand how Alex can be so smart and thoughtful and cute _all the fucking time_.  
  
“You get a lollipop,” Alex says, and smiles a little smile of reassurance. If Sam had more doctors like Alex, maybe she wouldn’t hate going so much.  
  
Later that week, Sam has another doctor’s appointment. This kind is the regular check-up cooter-doctor kind of appointment, so, obviously not in Alex’s realm of specialties. Thank God. That would be awkward.  
  
But, asking Alex to watch Ruby while she goes to the appointment is the logical, responsible parent thing to do. Ruby hates sitting in waiting rooms and Alex likes kids, so of course she asks her first. It’s a win-win-win. What _isn’t_ the logical, responsible parent thing to do, however, is to lose track of time while running errands after the appointment.  Sam races through her front door with two reusable grocery bags filled to the brim and her purse hanging off her arm and her keys dangling from her little finger. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she’s almost panting, out of breath more from rushing than physical exertion.  
  
“Hey— hey, breathe,” Alex says, and stands from the couch to help her set the bags on the kitchen counter. She reaches into one and starts unloading boxes of cereal (mostly the nutritional, healthy kind, but there is a box of Lucky Charms tucked between Life and Special K)  and a carton of milk and some string cheese. “Ruby and I were playing Parcheesi, but then—”  
  
“Parcheesi?”  
  
“Yeah, I, it was one of my favorites, growing up. I thought she might like it.” Alex shrugs and tries to play it cool, and if Sam smirks a little, Alex doesn’t notice. Dweeb. Alex glances at her, “Yeah, so then she got a text from someone asking about a project due on Monday, and she ran upstairs with a panicked look on her face. I thought it was maybe better to wait it out on the couch than ask questions.”  
  
“So you waited on the couch for two hours, without even turning on Netflix?”  
  
“It’s no big deal,” Alex says, and unloads some popcorn and jasmine rice. “I didn’t think it was important to text you about a password. I caught up on the news. How are you feeling?”  
  
They talk for a while, and Sam lets Alex know she’s doing okay, but she still blacks out now and again. After the groceries were all put away and halfway into drinking a bottle of wine, Sam rests her hand on Alex’s thigh while they’re sitting on the couch. There are only a few inches between them. “It helps to know you’re just a phone call away.” Had they been this close when they first sat down? Sam can’t remember.  
  
Alex looks into her wine glass and smiles. “Hey, thanks.” She checks her watch and sighs. “I should probably get going.” She stands, and Sam scrambles to get up too. She’s going to leave? _Now?_  
  
 _“Oh,_ Alex, it’s after midnight. You’ve got a ways to drive back, I can give you some stuff to crash here.”  
  
“Oh, I don’t-“  
  
“Really, it’s no imposition. Besides, Ruby would love to have another person around for breakfast tomorrow. She says I always burn the bacon, this time I can blame it on you if it goes south.” She doesn’t know what’s making her say all these things to convince Alex to stay. Sure, she’s gotten close with Alex in the last few weeks, but surely she wouldn’t be upset if Alex decides to go to her own home. Her house. Where she lives. And sleeps. Alone.  
  
“You drive a hard bargain,” Alex says. “Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude.”  
  
“It’s not intruding if I want you to stay,” Sam says. She clears her throat and tries again, “if you’d like to stay, I have the most comfortable, worn-in sweatpants in the universe. And they could have your name on them, but only if you want.”  
  
Sam somehow convinces Alex that sharing the bed was mutually beneficial, and they find themselves staring at each other from across the room.  
  
“I like the right side,” says Sam, and bites the bullet and climbs under the duvet.  
  
“Good thing, because I like the left,” Alex jokes, and laughs an awkward laugh, and climbs in after her.  
  
They both lie on their backs, leaving a gap between them, trying their best to not make it weird. (It’s weird.)  
  
They both manage to fall asleep within an hour, and when Sam wakes up with her legs tangled in Alex’s, she doesn’t even move them until Alex begins to stir.  
  
—  
  
“Remember when we first met?” Lena says. Her heels lay at the foot of the hospital bed she and Sam are lying in. It’s dark, even with the overhead light on. She’s curled around Sam, who can barely stay sitting up, never mind awake.   
  
“You were so afraid of me,” Sam mumbles, her voice raspy from screaming. She winces as she clears her throat.  
  
“I was n—“  
  
“You were a wreck. That’s why I decided to like you. You were nervous about screwing up.” There are dark circles under Sam’s eyes, and her face is swollen at the temples where the contact points for the electrodes delivered God-knows-how-many volts directly into her body. Lena had explained to her, _i_ _f we want to force Reign out, I have to crank it high enough that a human can’t survive._  
  
“I wasn’t nervous about screwing up,” Lena pauses for a second, deliberating if she wants to give up on a closely guarded secret. Anything to make Sam smile, right now. “I was nervous because I thought you were hot.”  
  
Sam laughs a laugh that comes from her belly, and Lena thinks that this all might still turn out okay if Sam can still laugh like Sam. She tightens her hold around Sam’s waist and waits until Sam falls asleep before slipping off the bed and raising the force field around the makeshift holding room. It’s not a cell. Sam’s her oldest friend, not her prisoner. She’s going to find a way to make her better.  
  
—  
  
When it’s all over, Sam needs a lot of time alone to recover.  
  
Alex is letting Ruby stay at her place. She calls Sam every day, but Sam is in no shape to see her daughter face-to-face, much as she might want to. She doesn’t want Ruby to see her mom bloodied and bruised and broken. She’ll have nightmares for years.  
  
Lena comes by with food rather than having it delivered. Sam knows it’s not to quell any guilt over what happened, because they’ve already talked — at length — about how Lena did all she could to help, and how it was eventually L-Corp tech that saved her. They’re good. There are no apologies necessary. Sam, on the other hand, can hardly get out of bed. Getting out of bed means facing the horrors she’s caused which means having to atone for all of that and she knows she wasn’t technically Reign, but Reign used her body like a fucking parasite and it was all too, too much. When she closes her eyes, all she sees is death and destruction.  
  
Lena starts staying over when she realizes that Sam doesn’t sleep anymore. At least when she stays, Sam feels safe enough to close her eyes. When Lena’s there, Sam can sometimes see Ruby and Alex and Kara and Lena, all in her house around a long dining room table, having a meal. Sometimes it’s Ruby graduating from high school. Sometimes it’s Alex, holding her like Lena used to hold her.  
  
Ruby comes home two weeks after Lena starts staying, and so Lena doesn't stay anymore. Alex comes with Ruby, and the three of them pile into Sam’s bed, and it feels like things will be okay someday. It takes months, but she starts sleeping through the night.  
  
The first night Ruby sleeps away from home again, Alex is called by the DEO to take care of some urgent alien thing. Sam assures Alex she’ll be okay, but not five minutes after Alex leaves, Sam’s spiraling into alien, death, Reign, guilt. She calls Lena.  
  
Lena sets up a blanket fort in the living room and they pile all the pillows and blankets they can find in the house inside of it. Lena keeps talking and it keeps Sam listening, which means Sam’s not thinking about all the people Reign has murdered. Lena can see it in Sam’s eyes that she’s drifting farther and farther away. They’re lying side-by-side on their backs, arms touching.  
  
“Kara kissed me,” she says. Sam blinks twice. “The morning after the Christmas party. Well, afternoon. I never got to tell you.” Sam feels her heart squeeze at the implication of the timing. They’ve lost months because of Reign. It’s not fair.  
  
Lena continues when she realizes Sam’s not ready to talk back yet. “I woke up, threw up in her bathroom, and then she gave me a spare toothbrush and let me shower. And then we spent the rest of the day in pajamas watching movies.” The corner of Sam’s mouth turns up slightly. Lena takes it as a good sign.  
  
“We watched _The Princess Bride_. And at the end, she leaned over and kissed me.”  
  
“Did you kiss her back?” Sam asks. It's small, it's quiet, but it's something. Lena bites the inside of her cheek.  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“Maybe?”  
  
“Maybe,” she says again. “And maybe a little more than that.”  
  
Sam barks out a laugh, “About damn time.” Lena turns and puts her arm across Sam’s hips.  
  
“How are you?” Lena asks.   
  
Sam sighs. “Ruby’s doing well,” she redirects. “Alex has been great with her. She helps with schoolwork, she cooks for us, she takes care of all the errands that require being out around people…” Sam trails off. She’s stopped going outside. Lena’s been convincing her to go out an hour a day, just in the backyard. Even that seems too much some days. “Ruby’s tutoring math now. She skipped a level.”  
  
Lena smiles into Sam’s shoulder. “I’m proud of her,” she says, “and of you.”  
  
“What’s there to be proud of?” Sam clears her throat.  
  
“You’re an amazing mom.” They’re quiet for a minute, then Lena asks, “You love her, don’t you? Alex?”  
  
Sam is quiet. She lets the question sink in until she feels it sink into her bones and consume her, even though she knew the answer the second Lena had asked. “Yeah, I think I do.”  
  
—  
  
The second time Ruby sleeps away from home, Alex is not called by the DEO to take care of some urgent alien thing.   
  
It’s a little strange to be sleeping in the bed without Ruby and Alex seems to make every excuse possible to not get in bed even though Sam’s been ready to shut the lights for close to a half hour now. “You’ve flossed twice already, Alex. What’s going on with you?”  
  
Alex frowns and shakes her head a little — a telltale sign she’s hiding something. “Nothing,” she says and refolds her jeans for the fourth time.  
  
Sam catches on and rolls her eyes as she tries to stifle a smile. “Get in bed.” Alex clears her throat and settles under the covers. “We’re not going to make it weird,” says Sam as she traces up and down Alex’s bare arm with her index finger. “We’ve been sleeping together for months already.”   
  
Alex nods and turns to face Sam. They study each other for a moment. “Can I kiss you?” Alex asks and Sam brings her hand up to cup Alex’s face in affirmation. She leans in almost all the way but Alex is the one that closes the gap between them. It’s tender, and Alex’s lips are soft but a little chapped on one side, and when Sam pulls away and opens her mouth just enough to take a breath, Alex licks her bottom lip. Sam looks dazed when she lies back. Alex takes the opportunity to steal another peck on the lips before she leans back against the headboard.   
  
They both sit for a minute, stunned into silence and smiling like fools, before Sam reaches over and switches off the lamp. When she lies down, Alex comes with her. Alex’s mouth is on her collarbone as her hand slips under the hem of her nightshirt, tickling her stomach right beside her bellybutton. Sam’s hands go directly to either side of Alex’s head, fingers threading through her hair and pulling just the slightest bit. It’s enough to make Alex moan and the vibrations on her chest make Sam breathe open-mouthed and heavy.  
  
“I want to take care of you,” Alex whispers between kisses to Sam’s neck. “Let me take care of you.” Sam pulls her up to kiss her properly. Alex’s hands slip from Sam’s taut stomach to the waistband of her shorts.  
  
“Wait,” Sam grabs Alex’s wrist.  
  
“Are you okay?” Alex is immediately sitting up and leaning back to remove her weight from Sam.  
  
“Yeah, I— I thought maybe we should talk about something before this happens,” Sam says, gesturing between the two of them.   
  
“Yeah, of course, anything,” Alex says. Her eyebrows are doing that concerned thing that Sam finds so endearing. She takes Sam’s hand in both her own and squeezes.  
  
“I love you,” Sam says. If she had to hold that in a second longer, she might’ve exploded.  
  
Alex smiles and brings their hands to her lips to plant a soft kiss on the back of Sam’s. “I’ve loved you back for a while,” she says. “Now, where were we?”  
  
It doesn’t take long. Sam feels light as feather, the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders momentarily. After all the pain she’s caused, she shouldn’t be allowed to feel this _good._ She sleeps without dreams that night and wakes more rested than she has felt since before she moved to National City.   
  
—  
  
Sam and Lena sit across from each other at a small wooden table in the courtyard of some fancy brunch place Lena picked out earlier that morning. It’s beautiful and serene, and most importantly, secluded. Lately, they try do something together every Sunday as part of Sam’s reintroduction into the populated world. Usually Sam can only handle an hour or two, max. It’s a work in progress. Sometimes Alex tags along for support, sometimes Kara pops in towards the end just to say hello, but it’s their ritual to make sure they always make time for each other. No more letting years slip by them, and there will be no need for more apocalypses led by three homicidal alien maniacs to make them close again because they’re never going to drift apart.  
  
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Sam,” Lena’s eyes are shining a little. Sam knows she’s about to cry, which is why she answers with:  
  
“You’d probably fuck Kara a lot less. Alex loves to barge in without knocking, too much for anyone’s good.”  
  
Lena wipes under her eyes and is grateful for how Sam can make any situation lighter, more carefree. “Is this your way of telling me I owe you a thank you for keeping Alex occupied?” Lena says and sips her coffee. It’s black.  
  
Their morning has been spent laughing at how they got to be at this place in their lives, in serious relationships with a superhero and badass secret government agent, saving the world, making National City a better place to live. Only six years ago, they were skeptical of even being in business together. How either of them could have ended up here is anyone’s guess, but neither would trade it for anything — except maybe a chance to go back and do it all over again from the start.   
  
“You don’t even like black coffee,” is all Sam offers in response. She rips open a sugar packet and dumps it into Lena’s mug. Lena narrows her eyes in mock annoyance. Sam grins and plucks a piece of honeydew off of Lena’s plate.


End file.
